With backing from the local alderwoman and money from City Hall, a new liquor store opened this year in South Austin — one more purveyor of alcohol, cigarettes and lottery tickets in a neighborhood desperate for something more. Many residents viewed the new business as an insult. What they didn't know was that it was bankrolled and launched by a convicted drug-dealer who has been tied to a street gang and is facing yet another narcotics charge. The controversial liquor store is symbolic of the years of haphazard development efforts that undermines hope in one of Chicago's neediest neighborhoods.

West Side pastor John Abercrombie has made himself a key player in City Hall’s planning and development efforts in the South Austin neighborhood. Public agencies have poured millions of dollars into several projects in which Abercrombie played a leading role. But Abercrombie has at best a mixed record of success as a developer and landlord, mirroring city officials’ haphazard efforts to assist one of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods. And while Abercrombie lives in a suburban mansion and drives luxury vehicles, some tenants in his string of apartment buildings have endured substandard conditions.

Theadora McNeil lives next door to a vacant property in the 700 block of North St. Louis Avenue that was donated to a small West Side charity.

The idea seems noble enough. Financial institutions donate foreclosed homes to charities, which then hire local residents to rehab the properties for ownership by low- to moderate-income families. But the real story of this urban renewal effort is not so simple, the Tribune found. With the charities often failing to deliver on their promises, the only clear beneficiaries of the process appear to be the banks, which rid themselves of problematic buildings while reaping tax benefits for their donations. Some donated homes remain unsecured shells used by criminals and vagrants — ugly scars in battered communities.

Public support is building for a West Side “innovation park” that would train and employ impoverished residents in high-tech factories, perhaps on the site where Brach’s once churned out candies. But lost in the promise of the venture is the questionable track record of a related project launched by the same man, Chicago labor activist Dan Swinney. Since it opened seven years ago, Austin Polytechnical Academy has fallen short of its promises to prepare youth for college or for well-paying careers in manufacturing, the Tribune found.

interactive featureA deepening dividePublished Dec. 20, 2013

The once-stable South Austin community is emblematic of many low-income African-American neighborhoods in Chicago that have been battered by population loss, rising rates of poverty and joblessness. Even as revitalization projects rise in neighborhoods wrapped around Chicago’s commercial core and to the north, conditions worsen in communities on the South and West sides, to the detriment of the entire city. While prosperous areas teem with residents and bustle with new development, neighborhoods like South Austin are being hollowed out, awash in vacant and dilapidated buildings.

Using census data stretching back four decades, the Tribune conducted a sweeping analysis to reveal the story of two Chicagos, increasingly pulling away from one another with each passing decade. In the graphic below, each dot represents a Chicago community. Click on any dot or enter a name to see how it compares to others and how that changes over time. The Tribune included South Austin as well as the larger Austin community because the “Poverty and Profit” series has focused on the area of Austin south of Chicago Avenue.

Follow a community

Select

Per capita income

Population density

4-year degree

In poverty

Unemployed

Per capita income in 2013 dollars

Income figures for 1970 include earnings for those 14 and older.Figures for 1980 and later years are for 15 and older.

1970

1980

1990

2000

2011

Percentage of African-American residents

Note: Data for 1970 through 2010 come from the decennial U.S. census. Data for 2011 are from the American Community Survey's 5-year estimates, collected on an ongoing basis between 2007 and 2011. The estimates are based on a population sample in each community and are subject to a margin of error, which is not shown. Census questions have changed since 1970 and can affect comparability; see the individual categories for more information. Boundaries of the census' geographic tract areas also change regularly. These generally align well with Chicago's official community areas, but the match is not always exact.